Africa Youth Congress is a non-governmental and nonprofit charitable organization registered in USA to create BORDERLESS AFRICA that unites and empowers all African youths regardless of country, race, language, religion, tribe, and political affiliation We are incorporated in the United States of America to serve as a BORDERLESS AFRICA that unites and empowers all African youths without regard to
their country, race, language, religion, tribe, political affiliation, etc. Our goal is to sufficiently empower African youths by providing them with leadership and entrepreneurship training, mentoring, business start-up grants and funds, and other economic and socioeconomic resources and support they need to be economically and socially empowered and independent. Our vision is to create the right platform and tools that will enable African youths to sufficiently participate in the governance of their various countries so that they may inject new and forward-looking ideas and policies as needed to develop and build a better Africa. In the years prior to establishing the Africa Youth Congress, Attorney Jude Menes had traveled to and/or held discussions and exchanged ideas with youths in most of the 54 countries in Africa. In the course of the discussions, it became clear that despite having seemingly common problems, African youths are disconnected from each other and do not have a common platform through which to support each other and work together in order to find collective solutions to their common problems. Because the youths are not sufficiently empowered economically and socioeconomically, they often find themselves struggling to survive and solve their problems on individual basis. As a result, they tend to be disconnected from each other and are often uninterested in collaborating to solve each other’s problems. What Attorney Menes discovered is that very often when there are crises affecting one African country, youths from neighboring countries are nonchalant about their neighbors’ situation. Rather than joining forces with the youths in the crises-affected country, the neighboring-country youths will simply dismiss the situation with words like: “its those people’s problem”, “they are too weak” or “it will never happen to us”. They fail to realize that as Africans, we are all the same and our destinies are somehow intertwined. If it happened in one African country, then it could happen in any African country. African Youth Congress has set up various organizations and partnerships through which we will empower African youths and secure the future of Africa. For instance, we are lobbying and persuading various international companies that are operating in Africa or benefiting from Africa’s natural resources to ensure that they train and hire more African youths among their workforce. For business-minded youths, our partnership with Florida-based Planet Startup, Inc., allows us to provide leadership and business/entrepreneurship training and mentoring. When our youths are trained, we will directly or through other organizations, provide them access to business startup funding and grants. For fashion-minded youths, our Fashion Week Africa, helps promote aspiring models, fashion designers, and fashionistas. And through our online magazine called “Downtown Africa”, we showcase all things good about Africa as a way to benefit African youths by driving direct foreign investment and tourism to Africa. And for our youths who are talented in music and entertainment, our Downtown Africa Entertainment and Media Company provides them music and movie recordings and productions, distributions, training, mentoring, etc. We are currently working with some international organizations to establish an avenue to empower our youths who are talented in sports. Primary membership is open and free to all African youths, while other various levels of membership are open to all friends and well-wishers of Africa. MEMBERSHIP IN AFRICA YOUTH CONGRESS HAS ITS BENEFITS --- AND IT’S FREE TO YOU!
